I have a Silver Chest, circa 1950 that may have been dropped on a corner.
The top is cracked. the corners have given way, and the interior shelf is loose.
What is the best glue to use? epoxy based, air dry, what? I need a glue that is easily obtainable, low cost, and will hold everything together without 'looking ugly'
what's the best glue for this?
When you say "silver chest", do you mean a solid wooden box meant for holding silverware? If so, and it was me, I would use a white wood glue, and clamps to hold the wood joints tightly together as the glue cures. Wipe off any excess glue that oozes out as the clamps tighten up the joints with a damp sponge. The damp sponge will remove all the glue except the glue in the joint to be glued back together.
White wood glue is only white because it consists of a slurry of clear plastic resins suspended in a liquid which is mostly water. Light reflects and refracts at each plastic/water interface, and your eye sees the myriad of different frequencies of light reflecting off all those interfaces as the colour "white". So, white wood glue is white for exactly the same reason why clowds, snowbanks and the head on a beer are all white, even though nothing inside of any of these things is actually white in colour.
The evaporation of the water as the glue dries and the coalescence of the plastic glue resins together into a solid film of plastic eliminates the plastic/water interfaces that gave rise to the white colour, so white wood glue dries clear and colourless. It's that clear, colourless, and hopefully very narrow seam that makes for nearly invisible repairs, which is what you want when repairing cracks in finished wood. Any glue that doesn't dry clear is going to make it's presence obvious if it's not the same colour as the finished wood.
Maybe go to any hardware store in your area that caters to the local woodworkers and buy a small piece of hardwood. Have them cut it in half on their table saw for you, and glue the pieces back together with white wood glue, some clamps and a sponge to clean up the joint before allowing the glue to cure. Now, no one ever does this because the wood on both sides of the joint will be rough from the saw blade, but that'll at lest give you a "worst case" scenario to go by. Normally, a woodworker would plane both sides of the joint before gluing it together for a much narrower seam. If the sawed seam is acceptable to you, you won't get much worse than that glueing your cracked wood back together.
There's more to this than just what type of glue to use.
You need to clean up the areas that will be glued - carefully - so that you get down to the wood without taking off so much that you loosen up the joints and/or leave unsightly gaps. If you want the glue joint to last, it needs to wood to wood, not old dried out glue to old dried out glue.
I'd suggest a slow setting glue to give yourself more time to re-assemble the chest. Typical yellow wood glue gives you about 5 minutes of open time which isn't much if you're not used to glueing and clamping.
Titebond Extend has an open time of about 15 minutes.
Some slow setting glues can give you as much as an hour of open time.
You should use clamps to hold everything together while the glue dries. This will produce the strongest glue joint.
Dry fit everything together to get your clamps adjusted and laid out before you apply any glue so that there are no surprises once you start glueing. Clamp until you get a slight amount of squeeze out from the joint and then wipe the squeeze out off with a damp rag before it sets.
Good luck!
hat is easily obtainable, low cost, and will hold everything together witho ut 'looking ugly'
Presuming you mean a wood silver chest then regular water based wood glue i s your best option. Clamping it is the best. You want the two surfaces to be pressed together as tightly as possible. Glue is not meant to be a "fi ller" for gaps. Use a damp cloth to wipe up all the excess before it start s to dry. Leave it alone to dry for 24 hrs.
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